Royals Report: 5 Things About Memorial Day Rally

The Royals continue to roll with yet another late-inning rally to take a 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays Monday night at Kauffman Stadium. The Memorial Day victory extended Kansas City’s winning streak to four games.

The Kansas City Royals ran their record to 28-22 and extended their AL Central lead to 1.5 games. The Tampa Bay Rays fell to 22-27 (last place in AL East).

The KC Royals took a slim 2-1 lead into the eighth inning, only to watch the Rays scratch out a run on an RBI single from Kansas City area native Logan Morrison. The Royals responded with a four-run outburst in the bottom of the eighth, capped by Eric Hosmer’s three-run home run, that put the game out of reach.

Once again, Kansas City Royals late-game magic has carried the defending world champions to a win.

With both the Rays and Royals wearing camouflage caps to in honor of our nation’s servicemen, I couldn’t imagine a better way to cap off America’s Memorial Day celebration and to start the summer.

Let there be baseball!

On to my five observations about Monday’s game:

Next: Ian Kennedy

5) Ian Kennedy Fighting Command

Ian Kennedy lasted 6.0 innings while allowing 1 unearned run and racking up 6 strikeouts, but it wasn’t at all easy. Kennedy walked five batters while leaving the bases loaded twice.

He had a particular problem putting hitters away, allowing multiple walks after getting two strikes. Kennedy’s command wasn’t way off; he missed by a little on most of his walks. Still, he was pitching with runners on base quite frequently despite allowing only three singles on the night.

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Overall, you have to say it was a successful outing for Kennedy. When a pitcher can hold the other team to one score when struggling with his command, that’s a professional job.

Though I was against the Ian Kennedy contract because I thought general manager Dayton Moore overpaid by signing him to five-years for $70 million, I have to admit he’s been everything the KC Royals could have hoped. He’s been the most reliable pitcher in the rotation and is on track to eat 200+ innings.

For the season, Kennedy is 4-3, with a 3.03 ERA and a 8.9 K/9. That’s easily no. 2 starter performance bordering on ace territory.

While we don’t know if Kennedy will keep up his early standard in Kansas City, he’s shown his fly ball tendencies are a perfect fit for the deep expanse of Kauffman Stadium and the KC Royals fleet outfield defenders.

Next: Kendrys Morales

4) Kendrys Morales Really Is OK

Kendrys Morales stats look horrible 50 games into the season. The slash line is a terrible .182/.254/.306. Many people say he looks “lost” at the plate.

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But, other numbers tell a completely different tale. According to FiveThirtyEight.com writer Rob Arthur, who used Stat Cast exit velocities and ball trajectories to project OPS (on base plus slugging), estimated that Morales should have a robust .935 OPS rather than an anemic .560.

Add in his abysmal .205 BABIP (major-league average hovers around .300) and you have what appears to be some crazy bad luck. However, can things really be that simple?

Maybe teams have gotten some good batted ball data that has allowed them to position their defenders exceptionally well against Morales. Is it possible that some hitters are unusually regular where they hit the ball and are thus more vulnerable to shifts than others? Right now, that’s a question I’m going to have to leave for future research because I don’t know how to investigate this hypothesis.

Even so, with Morales hitting the ball hard at trajectories that should lead to success seems to tell us that nothing’s wrong with him.

Next: Hit And Run

3) The Hit And Run Plays Proved Huge 

This tight, largely well-played game (despite unearned runs for both teams) turned on two hit and run plays. In the top of the eighth inning the Rays pulled off a hit-and-run with the rather slow Stephen Pierce on second base.

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Pierce forced third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert to break toward the bag which opened up a hole that Logan Morrison used to punch a ball deep into the hole between short and third. The weak grounder turned into an infield single that allowed Pierce to knot the score at 2-2.

Really, it was a nice piece of baseball from a Tampa Bay team that has been struggling to score runs while facing an almost unhittable reliever in Kelvin Herrera (1.08 ERA).

In the bottom of the eighth inning, the KC Royals pulled off a hit-and-run of their own with Alcides Escobar on first base after a one-out single. Whit Merrifield shot a grounder through the hole between first and second to move Escobar to third.

Escobar HURDLED the incoming ball to avoid making an out. It was an amazing piece of basepath athleticism that rescued the play.

Lorenzo Cain then fought off a number of pitches to plate Escobar with a single that put the Kansas City Royals ahead 3-2. Eric Hosmer followed Cain’s RBI single with a three-run bomb to right-center that put the game out of reach at 6-2.

Of course, Hoz put the game out of range for Wade Davis to earn a save— which cost my fantasy team 11 or so points.

Next: Joakim Soria

1) Injuries Seems To Have Triggered An Adversity Response

The KC Royals suffered injuries to three All-Stars in left fielder Alex Gordon, third baseman Mike Moustaks, and catcher Salvador Perez. Normal teams start LOSING when missing their best players.

The Kansas City Royals rally.

It’s no accident. Last season, the Kansas City Royals went 31-17 after Alex Gordon tore his hamstring in July. Add in their historic playoff comebacks against the A’s and Astros in elimination games, hanging three blown saves on Mets closer Jeurys Familia, eight multi-run post-season comebacks in 2015, and you have a team that hits another level with their backs to the wall.

So instead of retreating back into their shell to lick their wounds, adversity has inspired the KC Royals to play with elimination-game intensity. With this team, late-inning comebacks seem to follow.

The Kansas City Royals are the best refutation I know to the sabermetric wisdom that good CLUTCH performance is a creation of small sample size. The KC Royals consistently pull out games in the late-innings when outrageous fortune threatens their season.

Next: Royals vs. Rays Series Preview

The reaction has been so consistent that it’s hard to believe it’s an accident.

Long live intangibles!